**Preface to "Participation and Well Being Among Children and Youth With Childhood Onset Disabilities"**

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to this Special Issue on "Participation and Well Being Among Children and Youth With Childhood Onset Disabilities". Participation, defined as involvement in life situations, is considered beneficial to children's development, health, and well being. Prior research has shown that the participation of children and youth with various types of disabilities is often restricted around the world. Factors affecting the participation patterns of those with childhood-onset disabilities are also well-documented and include personal, familial, and environmental factors. This Special Issue advances the current body of knowledge through high-quality multi-disciplinary research that enhances our understanding of 1) the impact of participation on subjective well being, 2) effective interventions to improve children's participation and emotional well being, and 3) knowledge translation (KT) strategies and implementation processes aimed at bringing changes in clinical practice towards a greater focus on participation for this population.

This Special Issue includes a collection of 14 peer-reviewed articles that bring new knowledge/evidence on the participation of children and youth with various type of disabilities such as physical disabilities, intellectual disabilities, acquired brain injuries, autism spectrum disorders, attention deficit hyperactivty disorders, and executive function deficits. This special collection is based on research conducted from different parts of the world including high-resource countries (Canada, The Netherlands, Israel, Taiwan, and Hong-Kong) and low-resource regions (South Africa and India). It focuses on methods for measuring participation in different cultural contexts, provides knowledge about benefits of new interventions to improve participation, and illustrates KT strategies facilitating the uptake of new evidence regarding participation in clinical day-to-day practice.

While new cutting-edge evidence generated globally is compiled here, concerted efforts are still needed to advance our understanding of the direct impact of participation in meaningful activities on one's well being. Specifically, intervention studies aimed at improving participation and, therefore, subjective well being, are needed, especially those that focus on mental or psychosocial elements of well being (e.g., mood/emotional status, self-esteem, friendships, and life satisfaction) rather than solely aspects of physical well being (e.g., fitness, energy, pain, and physical functioning). It is clear that our field is moving away from typical impairment-based interventions and therapist-prescribed exercise programs towards real-life client-engaging interventions that are meaningful for the child/youth and can build capacity and foster health and happiness. Thus, we hope to see future lines of inquiry to advance best practices for improving health and well being of children and youth with disabilities through participation-based approaches.

> **Dana Anaby, Mats Granlund** *Editors*

International Journal of *Environmental Research and Public Health*

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